Nick Brain fared good, bad, and ok on the ice for various reasons this season. On one hand, Nick's performance in terms of goals and assists was not _TERRIBLE_, 15 goals and 26 assists are adequate numbers relative to the rest of the league. The problem of course is that this is down slightly from Season 53, down big-time from Season 52 and 51, and numbers that aren't great for a player on the first line of a decent team, that's expected to give top teams a bit of a fight. Nick needed to be a high-powered offensive weapon for the Jets, and he was merely medium powered.

On the other hand, Nick's season was great in terms of the Game Rating stat (which seems to be dubious in usefulness but correlates roughly to certain aspects of player performance), and seemed to rate highly in various advanced analytical categories. I joke regularly about Nick having high "fundamentals per 60 minutes", but there might be a grain of truth to that. If I understood what any of the stats did or what they were I'd share them, but the gist I'm getting is Nick is great at defense, competent with the puck instead of wasteful, and would probably be a top-class player in the league with better support. So that kinda makes sense, but it's a far cry from the easy to understand good numbers that Nick was putting up in the Simon T era.

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The biased man in me thinks the United Kingdom will be hard to beat this year. We've got a top-flight forward line, a super deep blueline, a developing goalie in "Lucky" Luca Del Vecchio, and we've got capable hands at the till with ProjectSaint and goldenglutes. I'm hoping we'll get the job done to add another gold medal to Nick Brain's trophy case.

The reality is that USA and Canada, with their inherent depth and vast quality, will be hard to beat on paper. Canada could've very easily won last year, but got unlucky and finished 4th. They'll be back, and they have plenty of capable people to put together a lineup with. USA is steered by scruffdaddy, who has mined IIHF gold before for the Yanks, and they've got quality players everywhere. Even if they keep losing depth to transfers, they've got more reserves to call from and probably don't have to march out WJC-caliber guys as 4th line forwards (which is suicidal in FHM, as Tampa Bay has proved).

I'm hoping for UK Gold, Canada Silver, USA Bronze, but its more likely Canada Gold, USA Silver, Sweden or UK Bronze.

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The obvious answer is Joey K, Joe Kurczewski. He's the last survivor of the legendary S31 draft class, had a great career, put up a ton of points on some icon-level teams, won at least one Cup I think, and has had a respectable GM tenure with the New Orleans Specters. Even if NOLA screws it up this year, they're sorta like the San Diego Chargers in the NFL, where even if things don't work out in the end, they do better than other organizations in terms of putting together a talented roster that always warrants strong consideration as Western Conference champs. I think he'll be a slam-dunk first-ballot guy unless his retirement year falls alongside some stiff competition.

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I think Troy Reynolds would be a fun addition. The controversial former Renegade and North Star had a rollercoaster ride of a career off the ice even if things didn't go great on the ice. Frequently in the news for drunken behaviour, various fights, and known for being an on-ice agitator of some repute, I think Troy has that Sean Avery type of vibe going on, and that would add some interesting, possibly controversial insight to the usual crew of incompetent-ass talking heads we'd probably get in SHLverse.

I would also like to welcome in the initial management avatar of Wasty to a hypothetical broadcast. I don't recall his name off-hand, but a guy like that who has been GMing forever probably has a lot of good insight to share in terms of roster talk and matchups and the like, and I think it would improve the quality of a broadcast to have a man with that amount of tenure and experience telling it for what it is.

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a)I think that Cain is easily the better goalie talent-wise, but Cain has never lived up to his potential in big games, and him being screwed by goalie RNG is about 80% of the reason NOLA are Cup-less. Kryyst meanwhile has proved his mettle and made all the saves needed for the past few years on top-quality Hamilton teams. I think Kryyst is more likely to come up clutch in net to bring it home for Hamilton

b) Honestly, Gabriel is the better talent and has more natural ability if we're being honest. He's a puck-moving defenseman and those guys are liable to be heroes, especially with an aggressive style like Hamiltons. To be fair to Darnell though he plays a much more physical game and I'm sure no Hamilton forward wants to chase him into a corner for the puck, because that decision could prove hazardous to your health. Realistically though Gabe has the offensive nous to make a bigger impact for Hamilton in this series.

c) I think if NOLA and Hamilton were in the same division, maybe, but two matchups head-to-head don't mean a lot. Regular season stats are also harder to take into account for the simple reason that Hamilton and NOLA might as well be in two different leagues when it comes to schedule and quality of opposition. It would be slightly better to correlate numbers between the two facing higher-ranked teams in the standings methinks, and compare those to see who gets the edge.

d) Actually, I would take Hamilton at this point IRL for a vacation spot. I'm not sure about leaving my home country of Canada for any reason ever again, and I don't want to be in coastal cities too often really due to the encroaching threat of the oceans moving inland. New Orleans has great food but my stomach condition can't handle a lot of it. I think Nick Brain would prefer NOLA over Hamilton though due to the better nightlife and chance to pick up ideas for new cuisine.

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Verification word: TrivialPursuit